Thread by @scarlet_simply, I criticize One Piece, a lot. I complain about female characters, the [...]

I criticize One Piece, a lot. I complain about female characters, the sexism, the transphobia, the pacing, and more. I demand a lot from a story that I know can deliver.

But One Piece has never been about just a chapter each week.
Story time. LONG story.
Why I Love One Piece.

One Piece is not just a great adventure story, not just a chapter to look forward to.
For me, One Piece is a hybrid of people, community, meaning, and events through my life. I can truly, absolutely say, that my life would not be what is is without One Piece.

I am that awkward, weird adolescent girl. 13? I am too much. I am boisterous, theatrical and flashy and like to be onstage. On casual days, instead of dressing like the cool kids I adorn myself in long sweaters, drapey shawls and too much jewelry.

You know what happened.

It wasn't just the other kids, it was the teachers too. It hurt.

It wasn't that I was obnoxious or inappropriate, I was just an eccentric kid.

After a year of the bullying I shut up and turn myself off. I don't want to be a target anymore. I'm miserable. I miss me. I hate me.

I isolate for about a year, but one friend doesn't give up on me, says I'd like this manga called One Piece, because the characters are all quirky and weird too.
I refuse for a long time because I saw 4kids. One day I give in; he gives me the latest US Jump, which is Loguetown.

I have NO idea what is happening. But there is a woman. A loud, showy, too much woman, who wears an absurd tacky shawl and is theatrical and strong and I am ENTRANCED.

She is wonderful, she is what I crave. She REVELS in being too much.

And she says, "Hey kid, come with me."

I devour One Piece. I weep for Nami, for Bellemere. I am delighted by the flashy clown pirates. I love the quirky strangeness of the villains. When the English manga isn't enough, I turn to scans on the school computers. I love Baroque Works. I love Water 7. I weep for Robin.

I go skiing for the first time and slide down the bunny hill yelling "SUBE SUBE SPUR! NO FRICTION!" and slice open my right knee. (That's a whole other thread)

14 stitches and nerve damage. Worth it.

This later becomes my college application essay, conveniently omitting details

I write my first fanfics. I don't know why, I have never written stories before.
I write a 140 page pile of garbage that is a love letter to Alvida.
I submit shorter fics to a competition. I win an award for a fic about Coby and Alvida. I nearly cry when I accept the award.

For my birthday I save up money for the whole year to go to a wig store. There was no Arda, no cosplay stores!

Sweet Usopp, the wig store is CLEARLY for women of color but my 16 year old white ass doesn't know how spaces like that work, I just see WIGS and I need one to cosplay.

The absolutely LOVELY salesperson lets my ignorant white ass try on some wigs.

I remember it so clearly, it is the third wig I try on. Even the saleswoman says it suits me well. My friend whispers "Oh, Alvida-san" and I catch a glimpse of her in the mirror, and I get shivers.

I cobble together some pink pajama bottoms and a purple winter coat, I make a hat. Mom says I have to wear a tank top with my little white crop sweater that's serving as a bikini top, but I take the tank top off as soon as I'm at the con. And I'm so scared, midriff is showing!

A woman dressed as Boa Hancock runs up to me and cries "ALVIDA! Please PLEASE come to the photoshoot, we don't have an official spot, it's in the parking lot at 4:00".

There are...15 of us?
15!!!! The JOY I felt. So many One Piece fans! We all SING because PIRATES SING!!

Years pass, I keep attending this con. I am always recognized as Alvida. I learn to sew properly, and I make a proper cosplay and enter the masquerade it. I take multiple masquerade awards and am promoted to Journeyman. First my fanfics, now my cosplay, all for her. I am so proud

Meanwhile, the community is growing enough to merit a Facebook page - and an actual photoshoot spot! Now we have FIFTY people?!
More years pass, a call goes out for One Piece panelists, I apply, and they pick me!?! I am so HONORED to panel as Alvida and represent this community!

After the con a Facebook post comes to my attention, asking who the panelists were.
A mother who brought her special needs daughter to the panel wanted to thank the panelists personally, that it was the highlight of her con.
I am so humbled to be part of such a great community.

I continue to panel. I premiere Dellinger in the masquerade in a dreadful dance routine.

The next day I am dressed as Alvida and stopped by a guy.
"You don't see Alvida cosplays."
"I was Dellinger yesterday."
"The one at the masquerade? That was you? Let's hang and talk OP."

He's staff, and a big OP fan. He's been running cosplay/game events for years at cons. He hires me to do outreach for his own con and promote his work.
I get to go to cons I would have NEVER been able to go to or afforded. I meet so many people, make so many friends.

I go to one such con I would have never been able to afford, leave his table to go to the OP shoot.
I meet a guy dressed as Garp who says "Dellinger! Don't go anywhere!" and vanishes. He returns 20 minutes later as Trebol. He pulled a quick change just to take pics with me.

Trebol introduces me to a Rayleigh cosplayer, who is perhaps the one of best known Buggy cosplayers. LEGEND.
Oh he also RUNS Nakamacon.
We all get along real well, they want me to come to Nakamacon, which has always been a dream, but I totally can't afford a trip to Florida.

September rolls around, I stay in touch with everyone. And I get a message from Trebol on Facebook.
He is a flight attendant, and he has some free flight credit he's got to use up by the end of the year. How would I like to come to Nakamacon?

I am stunned.

Nakamacon is perhaps, one of the greatest experiences of my life. I spend 3 days on a beach dressed as Alvida and Dellinger, drinking wine straight from the bottle singing "Crazy Crazy Rainbow Star" and "Bink's Sake," and ranting to everyone the Donquixote Family.

And I meet so many wonderful people, and it's totally okay that I just ramble about Alvida and the Donquixote Family. I hear Vinsmoke theories and Skypeia theories and we watch Film Z and drink wine and have a Loguetown cooking contest and Davy Back Games and it's magical.

In 2016 I publish a fic for the One Piece BigBang - haven't written OP fanfiction in years, but the ending of Dressrosa got me inspired.
My illustrator is an amazing woman, who months later, orders a pair of One Piece shoes that don't fit and just gives them to me because.

I continue writing. I cosplay Jora and meet a reader of one of my fanfics which is every fanfiction author's fever dream. She sneaks into the masquerade green room just to hang with me. I meet some artisan class OP cosplayers, who say they love the community at this con.

I am humbled and honored, and I think of tiny little me years ago in the parking lot in pajama bottoms, and how our community has grown.
They scream my cosplay name for me when I accept my award for my Jora wig.
My new friend and jump in the hot tub and watch None Piece.

This, all of this - is One Piece to me. One Piece is a story, a story I adore, but it has never been about "the next chapter."
It is staying up under the covers writing fanfics, it is tears shed over my cosplay, it is wine on the beach, and above all, it is nakama.

The story of One Piece will progress, the community will evolve. But when people ask me why I read OP when I critique it, or if I'll ever stop reading - for me to to NOT One Piece, one would have to somehow erase all the memories and people that I have cherished because of it.

Even if Oda somehow destroys his world and narrative and the ending is a giant bonfire of sexism and Alvida ends up pregnant with Buggy's kid (please Usopp no) - what can't be destroyed is 12 years and counting of experiences and friends, all because of this story.

Thank you Oda. Thank you Alvida. Thank you Jora and Dellinger.

But most of all...Thank you to the experiences, the stories, the wild times and the wonderful nakama I have made along the way.
This is why I will always love One Piece.

For some context, if you have read my "adventure" thus far (like I haven't already embarrassed myself enough)

A grainy photo from 2009 of a girl (trying to hide her midriff)...and the grown ass woman she grew up into.

Thanks for all the adventures and the Nakama along the way.

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